In his memoirs, La Trinitaria member José María Serra de Castro [es] described Duarte as a man with a rosy complexion, sharp features, blue eyes, and a golden hair that contrasted with his thick, dark moustache.

According to historian, Pedro Troncoso Sánchez, while in England, specifically Southampton, from where Duarte would go to London was his gateway to Europe, he would study philosophy, history, law, political science and geography.

Duarte was also curious to learn of the events iin Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Mexico, among other nations, after Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, further influencing his liberal ideals towards his own country.

[17] Having thrown himself into these scenes of European radicalism, Duarte himself had the pleasure of witnessing the new regimes of liberty and rights that had arisen after the French Revolution; He was intrigued by the new changes produced in Germany and France, but none was caught his interest more that that of Spain, of which reforms introduced by Cortes of Cádiz.

His merit, not only as a patriot, but also as a political organizer, lies fundamentally in the fact that he was well aware of the historic moment that accumulated in Dominican society at that time; the reluctance of its most decisive layers to accept Haitian rule, of which by now was becoming more despotic and unruly.

[20] On July 16, 1838, in the place of Arzobispo Nouel Street, (in front of the Church of Carmen), Duarte and others established a secret patriotic society called La Trinitaria, which helped undermine Haitian occupation.

Upon learning of the conspiracy led by deposed liberal deputies in Les Cayes and other parts of the South, he arranged for Matías Ramón Mella to move to that region and reach agreements with Boyer's enemies.

[24] Meanwhile, the Haitian authorities of the city, headed by Governor Carrié, opposed the popular movement and a shootout occurred in the Plaza de Armas (today Parque Colón) when the crowd approached his residence to demand his resignation.

In his absence, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez had to take the reins of the separatist movement and make an alliance with the conservative sector headed by Tomás Bobadilla and Buenaventura Báez, resulting in the Manifesto of January 16, 1844.

Thanks to the conservative hegemony in the Central Government Board, on March 8 that body had taken the resolution to partially adopt a plan that had been outlined in the capital of Haiti by the consul general of France and several Dominican representatives when they were participating in the Constituent Assembly that had been held as a result of the triumph of La Reforma.

Duarte was in a position to carry out the coup, since Brigadier General Ramón Santana, who was feared by Puello's supporters, was in a critical state of health, and in addition, the French warship Naiade was absent.

After these events, on July 4, 1844, in the city of Santiago, Mella, who was Commander of the Department of Cibao, oblivious to what was happening in Azua with Santana, proclaimed Juan Pablo Duarte, President of the Republic.

They have been traitors and unfaithful to the Homeland and as such unworthy of the jobs and charges they held, of those who were deposed and dismissed from this day on.The first deportees by Santana were: Mella, Pina and JJ Illas, a Venezuelan poet, friend of Duarte.

In the cities, the constants were arrests, persecutions and confiscations of property and, in the countryside, uprisings, riots and guerrillas, which caused tempers to flare up and keep the country in permanent anxiety, to the point that it could It can be stated, without fear of being wrong, that throughout the 19th century Venezuela experienced a single civil war, with some, very few, moments of calm.

Faced with such political instability and in his condition as a foreigner and exile, in other words, by the Dominican government that at times acted as an ally of Venezuela, Duarte decided not to commit himself – much less to his family – and go into the deepest part.

At his funeral, Duarte delivered an elegy reproduced in the pamphlet “Posthumous Honors of Mr. Marcelino Muñoz,” included as an appendix in the booklet “Contributions to a Bibliography on the State of Apure,” written by Argenis Méndez Echenique.

Political power passed to the conservative group of hateros and former Frenchified boyerista officials, thanks to the control of the presidency of the Central Government Board by Bobadilla and of the Liberation Army by General Santana, who ruled dictatorially in various periods.

Referring to Báez and his early inclination in favor of the United States, he wrote in 1865:[38] In Santo Domingo, there is only one town that wants to be and has proclaimed itself independent of all foreign power, and a miserable fraction that always has spoken out against this law, against this need of the Dominican people, always achieving by gave of his intrigues and sordid dealings to take over the situation.Duarte preferred complete isolation to any concession.

On the 14th he received a letter from the Minister of Finance, Alfredo Deetjen, in which he communicated this: “My government having accepted the services that you have spontaneously offered us has decided to use them, entrusting the Republic of Venezuela with a mission whose purpose You will be informed in due course.

A text narrates that gloomy day in these terms:[46] Caracas, on the night of July 14, 1876, Duarte was approaching his end and while his sisters, Rosa and Francisca, watched by his side; His brother Manuel, lost her mind, was shooting nonsense in a neighboring room.

The note states the following:[47] General (sic) Juan Pablo Duarte, leader of Dominican independence, has died; His relatives and friends who subscribe hope that you will accompany them to the burial of the body tomorrow at 9 am in the IP of Santa Rosalía."

/ They were watched descend / to the quiet shore, / They He heard them say goodbye,/And from their muffled voice/I picked up theHowever, of the writings in his eventful years of exile, there are only a few verses without titles, contributed by the Venezuelan historian Francisco Manuel de las Heras y Borrero in his essay Juan Pablo Duarte in Venezuela, written while he lived in Chaguas: “Here the Patricio will participate in literary and social gatherings, avoiding overtly political ones, given his refugee status.

In the reviewed publication, a poem by Juan Pablo Duarte appears, dedicated to extolling the merits of the deceased, his friend, "who was the president of the Masonic Sociedad Joven Achaguas, which Juan Pablo Duarte frequentedHere are the verses contributed by de las Heras and Borreros: “Of paragon honor and model virtue,/ I call that impious world his own,/ and Heaven said without mercy, without mourning,/ with a tremendous voice “Marcelino is mine.” / And he heard that ruling, and without moaning in pain / with a calm, religious and pious face.

In this vein, Dominican historian Vetilio Alfau Durán writes:[50] During the twenty years of exile, misfortune had dug its claws into the body of Juan Pablo Duarte, annihilating him.

But there is also no doubt that the country owed him one last service: that of dying far from it, removing the weight of remorse from his shoulders!Hostos left evidence in his intellectual work of the admiration and respect that the historical figure of the patrician inspired in him.

"[51] Hostos refers to this children's play in a letter addressed to the editor of the newspaper El Telefono , from Santiago de Chile, on 23 September 1890, the year in which we assume he wrote the aforementioned comedy.

There he speaks:[52][53] And Patria, general, that in the courage of men and in the loyalty of women sees erected forever in the Dominican conscience, above transits and appearances, the indomitable vigilance with which the founder Duarte raised his fallen people.

Homeland, which still contemplates him, sagacious creator, illuminate with the fiery word, accused of being deluded and demagogic, the youth who in the humility of “La Trinitaria” learned from him to ignore the vile advice of well-off pride, or fear corrupter, who prefers the barragonies of dishonor to the health of freedom, always restless in childhood.

Homeland, which still sees, with the joy of a sister soul, the flash of Mella's blunderbuss light in the air, and an invincible people fall, standing, from the folds that unravel, opening to death, Sánchez's flag, there in the famous Puerta del Conde, on that day of the entrails, February 27.

Homeland, which later saw him, a victim of his own children, thrown out of power, which was in his hands like the ark of the Republic, and dying in expatriation, sad and poor, as a final service to the country, before whose appetites and fainting, freedom must be erected, in order to better preserve itself, with the poetry of sacrifice.